


two roads diverge

by chameleonchanging



Series: hippocrates [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, the logical conclusion of Catch's promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22856317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chameleonchanging/pseuds/chameleonchanging
Summary: Two clones and a Jedi are caught behind enemy lines. Two of them are dying, and the third is the medic.Catch made a promise, and now he has to keep it.
Relationships: Plo Koon/CC-3636 | Wolffe
Series: hippocrates [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/973875
Comments: 16
Kudos: 136





	two roads diverge

The blast, when it comes, is a surprise. Catch is normally better at situational awareness, but he’s never shaken off the tendency to become completely absorbed by the management of a medical disaster. It’s why he’s never been promoted beyond Sergeant: give him an interesting enough problem, and he gets lost in the details.

Case in point: Commander Wolffe’s insides, which are threatening to become his outsides thanks to shrapnel and the steep rocky incline. Catch had already sent the rest of the medical staff ahead when the running retreat was called - just needed to get that last bleed patched so the Commander was safe for transfer - and then he looks up and the lines are closing in, General Koon sprinting towards them, pulling Catch to his feet and hauling the Commander into a fireman’s carry, and they’re off scrambling up the mountain with droids blasting away at their backs, and then the rumble that becomes a roar as the mountain comes down around them --

* * *

It’s dark, and everything hurts. Catch innumerates his various aches and pains - the worst is his leg, which is bent at an unnatural angle, but is miraculously not bleeding or pulseless. He grimaces at the sharp flare of pain as he wriggles his toes. He’ll just have to be careful, then. What happened?

Right. The landslide. And his idiot commanding officers - !

He shoves himself up for a look around. Just a few steps away, both the General and the Commander are lying crumpled, half buried in rubble, and the Commander is leaking. Catch drags himself over, shifting rock as he goes. Somehow, it’s all of a manageable size; the only large boulder has wedged itself against an outcropping, forming the crevice that is their shelter. 

“Jedi magic,” Catch mutters to himself, and is shocked by the quiet answer:

“The Force helps those who help themselves,” says the General. “Are you well, Sergeant?”

“General!” Catch gives him a quick once-over. Nothing obviously wrong. “Injury report?”

“Nothing pressing,” says the General, and then because Catch has his battalion well-trained, “My side hurts, and my chest. It doesn’t feel broken, though I defer to your greater expertise. Otherwise, a few scrapes and superficial bruises.” 

Catch agrees with the assessment for lack of compelling evidence to the contrary. His other patient is in worse shape; the Commander is bleeding again from his arm, and his hips are moving more than they should when Catch presses down. The General wordlessly shrugs out of his robe and helps tie the shreds in place around Wolffe’s midsection. Still breathing, still out cold, stable for the moment while Catch surveys someone else.

“Your turn, sir,” says Catch.

“Your leg,” says the General.

“Nothing else to do for it before we get to a medbay,” says Catch. “The only splinting material here are your robes and a bunch of rocks, and I don’t want to risk being out if we need it later.”

“At least allow me to move to you,” says the General, doing exactly that. He props himself against the outcropping at Wolffe’s feet, resting one claw against the Commander’s shin. He moves stiffly, hardly a surprise, but this close there is a faint crackling sound with every breath - 

Shit. “Sir, tell me you have your spare filters,” Catch says with a calm he doesn’t feel, patting down the few pouches he still has on him to no avail. All he has are one of those oxygen adsorption packets, a dose of sedative, and a transfusion kit, not nearly enough for the job of keeping his general alive. 

“Cracked as well, “ says General Koon apologetically. 

Fine. Fine. It’s dark out and their position is probably overrun by the Separatists. All he has to do is keep them alive until somebody tracks their ID ping. By his chrono, the General has been exposed to a standard atmosphere for only a few hours, and only what has seeped in through the crack in his filter. Not irreparable, if he can only limit further exposure. Dump the preservation packet into the General’s mask, use the transfusion kit to create a closed space and his own lungs to strip out the oxygen so the General can breath. Maybe he can get the atmosphere composition to 15%. It might be enough to buy more time. But it will contaminate the transfusion tubing, and the Commander might be bleeding into his own belly. Not enough tubing to cut and still be useful, fuck the suppliers and their lower bidder contracts. 

No. He can do this. He can save them both. If he just thinks hard enough, he’ll find the way. They only let the smart ones into medic school, and Catch is one of the smartest - and then he looks up again and sees - truly sees - his patients, and reality comes crashing down. 

Breathing 30% oxygen for a few hours, never mind the nitrogen and the carbon dioxide - it’s already a very, very slim chance he will survive if he gets definitive treatment now, and there’s no guarantee rescue will come. Catch can only temporize; the outcome will be the same. And Wolffe - is stable, for the time being, and he’ll last longer even without treatment. If Catch drains himself dry, Wolffe might even have the volume to tamponade whatever bleeding he has, whatever Healer-General Che might have to say about that kind of desperate strategy. 

In short, one of them is a longer shot than the other. He just doesn’t want to admit it. 

He grits his teeth on a furious scream. The General looks at him, exuding sympathy. He already knows.

“I made you a promise, sir,” says Catch, his words sticking in his throat.

The General nods. “I understand, Sergeant,” he says, meeting Catch’s gaze. Of course he does. Plo Koon has never been anything if not serene in the face of doom. Poisoned as he is now is certainly that.

“Damnit,” says Catch, choking on his words. “I don't want to - I could try -”

“Sergeant,” says the General, kindly, a clawed hand resting on Catch's arm. “I decline treatment. I understand the probable result of my refusal is death, and I refuse anyway. There is nothing you may do for me, and much you may do for Wolffe. Spend your time where it may do some good.”

“Fuck you, sir,” says Catch hollowly. “When I made that promise I was counting on you being unconscious before I got to you.”

“Do you regularly lie to your patients?” the General asks. He sounds more curious than disapproving. 

“Only the dumb ones,” Catch snaps without thinking. He is instantly filled with remorse. To be so flippant now of all times, to the victim of his greatest failure-! But the General laughs his little huff as is his way and waves off Catch’s apology, as if his death is no more significant than the weather. 

“I imagine we must seem so, with all your training and knowledge,” says the General. “We as a battalion have been a trial to you, and you have borne us well.” He shifts, and his breath stutters. A wary expression crosses his face. “Ah. Perhaps something broke after all.”

“Don’t push your luck,” says Catch, reaching for him. “If you’re determined to die for nothing, you could at least not kill yourself faster.” He feels his way up his general’s chest. Not flail, at least. Maybe crooked ribs, but not near the heart. Too high in the chest to endanger the belly. If it pops a lung - but it hasn’t happened yet, and with any luck, it won’t. 

The General bears Catch’s adjustments with grace. As much as he can muster, anyway, with a slow confusion settling in and his insistence on keeping one hand on the Commander’s person. When Catch tries to move him further away, somewhere he can sit with more support, he shakes his head, his claws flexing ever so slightly as though he is afraid Wolffe will slip away without his notice. The two of them breathe in time with one another, matched even though Catch has never known the General to breathe at a human pace.

“-Not nothing,” says the General quietly, almost an afterthought, like it was something too obvious for words. His other hand rests over Wolffe’s, stroking his gloved fingers absentmindedly while he hyperventilates and sways.

“Sir?”

“Wolffe isn’t nothing,” says the General. “Neither are you.”

Catch looks away. Maybe there’s something to the rumors after all. He busies himself with checking their shelter to give them their moment. 

* * *

“He won’t thank you for this, you know.” Catch says. It’s well and truly night; since they’d fallen into their holding pattern, there had only been the brief interruption of passing droids to break the silence. The Commander’s vitals are technically in normal range but on a slow slide down; the General is lapsing into and out of delirium, though he always seems to pull himself out of it when Catch’s distress begins to show. The oxygen-adsorbing pack they’d dumped into his mask is probably helping a little. 

Still, the General refuses help. “I know,” he says. His crackling has only worsened with time. What was once irritation has progressed to swelling and edema. Every poisoned breath only serves to drown him further, and all Catch can do is prop him up to prolong his suffering. 

“He wouldn’t want this for you. How’s he going to feel if he wakes up and has to live with the knowledge?” He tightens the makeshift pelvic binder with a vicious twist. Tighter is better, and it’s not as if the Commander is awake to feel it anyway. 

They fall into silence again while Catch shoves rocks under Wolffe’s legs. When that’s done, he checks the General’s pulse again. It flutters under his fingertips, matching his quick, short breaths, his head rolling back. He lets out a series of clicks from his chest before remembering himself and switching back to Standard. 

“I am sorry to make you watch this,” says the General. “If I could spare you this - if I could spare you both -”

“Let me help you,” says Catch.

“I won’t compromise his chances,” says the General. “I couldn’t. His life is - “

A look of fear enters his expression as his breathing begins to fail. Catch quiets him, and on impulse, empties his last syringe of sedative into the General’s blood. As he begins to slip under, his breathing steadies as Catch had hoped, and he settles his gaze on his unconscious Commander until his eyes fall closed and Catch is left with a sinking heart and one last request:  _ don’t let him die _ .

* * *

Commander Wolffe, of course, is a contrary bastard and regains consciousness not ten minutes later. He isn’t in the slightest bit surprised to be holding his General’s hand, and he’s very unhappy to see his General unconscious beside him where Catch had laid him out.

“Don’t move,” Catch orders, his voice still hoarse from the tears he refuses to let fall. “You’ve got an unstable pelvis and bleeding somewhere on the inside.”

“Sit rep,” the Commander rasps, fumbling for General Koon’s pulse.

“Landslide got us. We were out a few hours. You’ve been out another 3 since I’ve been up. I sedated the General just now,” Catch reports dully. “His filter’s cracked, and his spares. Can’t do anything about it now. He said - keep you alive.” The words are the hardest he’s ever had to say. He’s suddenly distracted by the Commander’s struggle to sit up; he plants his hands on Wolffe’s shoulders and leans hard. “God-fucking-damnit, I said  _ don’t move _ ,” he snarls.

“Help him!” the Commander demands, clawing at Catch’s arms. “What are you doing wasting time on me? Help him!”

“I  _ can’t! _ ” Catch roars. The Commander falls into stunned silence. If Catch hadn’t been so angry, he would have known why: he’s never admitted to a limit to his ability before. Not to his trainers, not to his fellow medics, and certainly not to any of the troopers under his care. Catch, like many of the Healer-General’s students, tries to emulate her air of omnicience whenever possible. Most days, he lets himself pretend to believe the illusion. But now everything is spinning out of his control. His patients are dying and his hands are tied. The Commander’s anger bites deep; part of Catch echoes his words:  _ you’re wasting time _ and  _ you’re letting your General die _ and  _ save him _ .

He wants, more than anything, to save Plo Koon. Not because the man is a Jedi or a General, not even because Wolffe demands it, needs his General to continue being. Catch wants to save Plo Koon because Catch is a medic. A healer. He was made to fix people, and yet the ethics that the Healer-General had drilled into him won’t allow him to do anything but stand by and watch. His promise binds him to let Plo Koon die, if that was what his fate dictated, one agonizing breath at a time.

“I can’t,” Catch repeats brokenly. “I can’t save him. He’s too far gone, and I promised him - I promised -”

“Catch,” Commander Wolffe says, his grip softening. ”Catch, I’m sorry.”

“He has to find his own way back,” says Catch. “I promised him.”

He lets go of Wolffe and scrubs the tears from his eyes. He needs another set of vitals. Maybe it’s time to start a transfusion. He’ll keep his patient alive until rescue comes or until the enemy finds them. He won’t be a disappointment to the Master of his lineage. He won’t be an oathbreaker. 

“Catch,” says the Commander. Even flat on his back, he has a dominant presence. Catch stills under his gaze. “Catch, are you okay?”

Catch lies. 

* * *

When rescue comes, it’s in the form of explosions in the distance and a lartie descending at speed. Boost and Sinker help to move rock and one of the junior medics he’d sent ahead helps to transfer the Commander onto a backboard. The General is similarly secured, and within thirty minutes, they’re hauling for the Courageous. In an hour, they’ve conference-called the Temple and the Baran-Do Sages and set course for Dorin. 

The first six hours on board, Catch is in surgery, fixing the bleed in Commander Wolffe’s belly. Then there’s the backlog of patients from the battle he’s missed while stuck under a rock, and all the notes that come with them, and then someone rats him out to Healer-General Che about his broken leg and he has to let someone else put him under to fix it with screws. By the time the anesthesia wears off, they’re in orbit between two black holes and his Unit is empty. 

Handoff tells him the General had been transferred in critical condition in a hyperbaric tank. The Kel Dor medics are as shocked as anyone he was alive; Plo Koon, the stubborn bastard, is going to be written up in a number of medical journals for surviving some record-breaking lab numbers. He had been clinging to life with a tenacious Force death grip, and it had paid off. He’s expected to make a recovery, possibly even to wake within a month. 

No thanks to him, Catch thinks bitterly. General Koon had been coughing up blood by the end, alternating with weak gasping. Commander Wolffe had also slid back into unconsciousness, leaving Catch alone, dripping blood into his brother’s veins and watching a good man die. He sits under the bridge, where brothers go to be alone while the stars and planets drift underneath in the wide viewport. Dorin is a smokey red, swirling storms on the surface, spiraling like blood down a drain. 

“Sergeant Catch,” a voice calls from above, disturbing him from his musings. He jerks, twists to see, and then tries to scramble to his feet to greet Vokara Che. 

“Healer-General,” he says as she approaches. She waves at him to sit and joins him. Behind her, Commander Wolffe gives him a brief nod and a gruff smile before vanishing, the traitorous snitch of a rat.

“Vokara,” she insists. “You’re my colleague, remember?” 

She has policies about appropriate forms of address between colleagues. “Vokara,” he echoes. 

“I hear you had a difficult case,” she says. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Catch shrugs. “Not really,” he says. Then, “It wasn’t a difficult case. It was - It was  _ so fucking simple _ . I just didn’t have the right shit.” He twists his hands together. “I had one transfusion kit, one dose of sedative, and two dying idiots too obsessed with each other to see past their own goddamn noses!”

Vokara lets him stew in his frustration for a long minute. “You seem angry,” she says. 

“I’m not,” Catch growls.

“Upset, then,” she says. She glances at him sideways. “Let yourself feel what you are feeling. There’s no shame in it.”

Catch draws a shuddering breath. “I’m . . . angry,” he admits at last. “Because it was taken out of my control. Walking away. General Koon refused treatment. I  _ know _ he has that right. I  _ know _ why he did it. But it felt like he was making me do something I really didn’t want to do. Like I was losing him to his own stupidity. 

“I’ve lost brothers before. I’ve picked wrong. But those were all things I did. And this feels like something forced on me instead.” He looks up. “Does it get easier?”

He spreads his hands. Lately, they’ve seemed constantly stained, as though no amount of scrubbing could rid them of grime. He can’t practice. He’d be a danger to his patients. His wild emotional state is as much of a problem as the filth. But Vokara presses their hands together anyway, unheedful.

“I wish I could tell you it does,” she says. “It’s a truth of our calling: we can’t make anyone do anything. Some people don’t want to be saved; others can’t be. Some are lost because we are only mortal and we cannot see the way. It hurts all the same, that we have the knowledge but not the means. I wish it were not so. I wish I had a better answer for you.”

“You wish you had a cure for my feelings,” says Catch with a resigned dryness.

“I could tell you to think of your actions as honoring Plo’s wish, that your purpose in that moment was to help your patient achieve what was most important to him. Does that change how you feel?”

“No,” says Catch. It feels like trying to put a sheet over an ugly truth. Like lying to himself. Like pretending. “Not at all.”

“So let yourself feel,” says Vokara. “I am not your patient; I have been where you are. You can tell me the unvarnished truth, and I will not judge you for it.”

“I feel - angry. Betrayed. If he’d just let me try - but he took that option away. How could he expect me to be a party to a slow, torturous death? And all I could do was let him.” He meets her gaze. “And if I come to terms with this - If I accept that some people don’t want to be saved, what do I become?” 

“I don’t know,” says Vokara. “May I tell you what you won’t be?”

Catch shrugs.

“You won’t be a failure. You aren’t betraying your compassionate nature by changing your goals. Catch - you aren’t a bad medic. Being caught in a bad situation is not a reflection of your character. And it’s hard to believe in the moment, but that’s why it’s so important for us to reach out to one another. Every healer in the galaxy has been where you are now; when you can’t remember why you’re walking this path, we will be there to remind you and support you until you find your feet again.”

“Vokara,” says Catch, “it hurts.”

“Let’s start with some water and go from there,” says Vokara. She holds out a bottle. With only a moment’s hesitation, Catch reaches out and takes it.

**Author's Note:**

> This was, in fact, the scenario that led to the creation of the series in the first place. Even with the widespread use of bacta, one would think that there are some injuries that are not immediately fatal but that would be difficult to fix in the field. Non-human members of any given unit would be more likely to run into complications by virtue of deviating from the norm, and the people who are responsible for providing care in those units would face the brunt of the related stresses.
> 
> Medicine isn't easy. What is ideal and what is possible are frequently wildly different, and knowing that *if only ___ your patient would have a better outcome* can be devastating. 400 physicians die by suicide every year in the United States, more than double the rate in the general population. 
> 
> If you are struggling, please reach out for help.


End file.
